OVERCROWDING PROMPTS BOARD TO CHANGE NEWMAN BOUNDARY

Overcrowding at Newman Elementary School in the city's northwest quadrant has prompted the Salt Lake Board of Education to change the school's boundary, moving 130 students to Meadowlark Elementary School next fall.

Tuesday night, the board decided that children living between Seventh and 11th North and west of Redwood Road will go to Meadowlark, 497 Morton Drive.However, in approving the new boundary, the board said it will be flexible in deciding whether to let sixth-graders in the current attendance area of Newman, 1269 Colorado St., decide to attend Northwest Intermediate School next year.

Two years ago, the board moved Newman sixth-graders to the intermediate school to ease the crowding, but the board and many parents want the sixth-graders returned to an elementary school.

Board member F. Keith Stepan said some children, however, have been planning on attending Northwest for several years and they should be given allowed that opportunity next year.

A citizens committee had examined several options in the boundary shift for more than a year. The committee had planned to back a proposal that would have left all sixth-graders in the Newman area at Northwest. However, Newman parents complained, saying that, combined with the boundary change, would cause the school to lose five teachers. So the committee presented three options to the board without recommendation.